


Christmas carols

by FixaIdea



Category: Maurice (1987), Maurice - E. M. Forster
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Fluff, I'll make that a valid genre just watch me, M/M, Slice of Life, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, linguistic fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:13:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21705772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FixaIdea/pseuds/FixaIdea
Summary: Maurice learns something new about his love.
Relationships: Maurice Hall/Alec Scudder
Comments: 2
Kudos: 85





	Christmas carols

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently one of the sequel-writers has this headcanon that Alec is Irish, and while it doesn’t make much sense, I like the idea, so let me at least partially borrow it for a moment:

23rd December 1913

The weather outside was as far from the perfect picture of Christmas postcards as humanly imaginable, yet despite the sleet and the rolling, thick fog Maurice was feeling more festive than he had in years. He mostly attributed this new-found Christmas spirit to Alec, who had been milling through an assortment of carols all day. He wasn’t any more religious than Maurice, but he liked the season none the less, the general excitement it brought, and Maurice found his happiness contagious.

Maurice busied himself by brewing some tea, with his friend crooning away in the background. Alec had a pleasant voice - nothing extraordinary, but nice to listen to. Apparently getting bored of ‘Deck the Halls’, which he had been humming on and off for the last ten minutes, he switched to a new song.

‘ _Oíche chiúin, oíche Mhic Dé_ ’

Maurice frowned a little. He recognised the melody as Silent Night, but it was neither in English, nor in its original German. Also, the words were too deliberately pronounced for some half-humming gibberish, it had to be actual lyrics.

‘ _Críost, ‘na chodhladh go séimh.  
Críost, ‘na chodhladh go séimh_.’

‘What language is that?’

Alec fell silent and looked back at him over his shoulder, with a strangely wary expression. It took him a moment to answer.

‘Irish.’

Maurice caught his eyebrows just before they shot up too high to be polite.

‘Oh?’

Alec shrugged.

‘One of me aunties was from Ireland. Must of bin quite the story how she and me uncle met, but they never told no one and we didn’t ask.’

'Getting caught up in impossible romances is a bit of a family trait then, isn’t it?’

Alec threw his head back and laughed. ‘A bit, innit?’

Maurice cocked his head to the side.

‘So, you speak Irish?’

‘Nah, not really, just the couple of songs. She explained the words an’ all’ Alec looked away for a moment, oddly pensive ‘Seemed important to her that someone should know.’

Maurice pulled the kettle off the stove, walked up to his friend and wrapped his arms around him from behind.

‘Sing it again?’

Alec chucked and leant back against him. As he began to sing his voice faltered a bit, making Maurice wonder if he was nervous or self-conscious. Whatever it was, it passed after the first few lines and they swayed gently together to the flow of the melody. They remained like that, pressed together long after Alec fell silent. Maurice closed his eyes and let his world narrow in, let the sleet outside, the cares of tomorrow and even his cooling tea fade away, until nothing remained but Alec’s warmth in his arms and his heartbeat under his palm.

Maurice smiled. This was indeed shaping up to be the best Christmas of his life.


End file.
